Friday, January 8, 2016

Derren Brown "Pushed to the Edge" - Summary

The promotion for Derren Brown's upcoming special, "Pushed to the Edge," has begun, ahead of the show's January 12, 2016 air date (9 pm on Channel 4). So what is it all about?

In Channel 4's press materials, Derren summarizes it thusly:

What the show asks is whether the mechanics of social compliance can be manipulated to push someone off a building to their death. Could it be taken that far? The plan to get there is through slowly turning up the heat. Here’s a person that finds themselves in a situation, not realising that it’s all an enormous fabrication for their benefit, and that every person they meet is an actor.... And it was a genuine experiment, in that sense – there was no guaranteed ending for us at all.